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I'm not going to drag this out arguing about exactly what we're arguing about. And I'm certainly not continuing this in MY own (as opposed to work) time... I bid thee farewell, pride intact.

It has. But there's no contradiction at all, in the quotes you posted, if you read them in context.

It's your fixation with the '2nd child' that is preventing you from seeing the alternative logic, I think. Its (at least) one of them - not that one IS a boy and what is the other. That is along the lines of your coin question, and is obviously 50%. Anyway, far more emminent mathematicians than...

Silly post because you've quoted my answers to two entirely different questions.

No - I am right, because I've been arguing all along that it is ambiguous and that both interpretations are 'correct'.

Beligerence.

As per my reply above, I do NOT believe that is a premise / scenario you can take from the original question'. This was simply presented to us as fact, that (at least) one child was a boy. It is a fair assumption from that to calculate your probability based on all families that meet this criteria.

Thank you for this. Might I run with it..? Here are your 4 couples: Couple 1: boy boy Couple 2: boy girl Couple 3: girl boy Couple 4: girl girl As per your experiment, I ask a random couple for the sex of one of their children, and they reply 'boy'. This is YOUR example. Because of this...

2 in 3. You've pulled out your black side. There is no probability involved in that - its happened. There are three possible coin faces you could be looking at. Two of them (the two sides of the B/B coin) have black on the reverse. the other (the black side of the B/W coin) does not.

Agreed. So of those families (i.e. all those with a boy), only 1 in 3 has a second boy. that's the logic.

Agreed this is pretty much exactly the logic behind my argument. This logic I do not follow. Sorry.

Let's run with this. Do you think (in general, rather than within the confines of this question), there is the SAME probability of a two-child family having two boys, as there is they'll end up with one of each?

But in the original question we don't know the answer to either. We know that one is a boy, but not which one. Most are choosing to read it as 'there is a boy, what is the probability of THE OTHER being a boy', which is absolutely 50%. However the question doesn't say that. It says at least one...

A man has two coins. He decides to spin both. Question "What is probability of both landing on heads" Answer 25%. Only one of four possible outcomes is heads/heads. Or would you 'combine' the h/t and the t/h possibilities into one, and call it 1 in 3 possibilities? No, you wouldn't.

No, I'm with him. Its the ambiguity that we are at odds over rather than the probability.

If you word it how you have then of course. I'll have to leave it there and do a TINY bit of work.

Yes

No - not at all. Read my posts #30, and #42. I've said the same as you - that the answer to that simple question is irrefutably 50%.

This is a little difficult to word, but basically: "What is the probability of two children both being male, given the proviso that at least one definitely is?" You have four possibilities (b/g, b/b, g/g, g/b), but the proviso allows you to rule out one of them. If you think of it as heads...

We are talking at cross purposes. You are answering (one interpretation) of the original question. I followed the path raised by the questions posed later in the thread about what the question posed meant - a different interpretation. You won't accept it, I guess, but my answers are 100%...